


A Key

by laEsmeralda



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:01:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7637536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laEsmeralda/pseuds/laEsmeralda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped in their own minds, together, Peter attacks the wall and Gabriel journals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Inside, Outside

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for ‘The Wall’ (Season 4, Episode 18)

**Inside**

After three years alone, without my powers to distract and comfort, I’m relatively certain that I’ve fixed what was broken within myself. I’ve always had a knack with repairing even though my preference was often to destroy instead. 

Hiro showed me that I could be a healer. I wasn’t truly paying attention then. He had his own agenda for that incident, but he’s also a wise fellow in a childlike way. Before Lydia pointed me toward Claire for answers, I didn’t know what was broken, so how could I even _want_ to fix it? 

Connection: the absence of aloneness, or so I thought. That was a key. Here I am, without anyone around, with only my _memories_ of people, and now I’m more connected to each of them than I ever was interacting with them. Connection isn’t just how they felt about me (which was fairly universally fear and revulsion) it’s how I felt about them—admiration, need, competition, anger, envy, scorn, pity, attraction—that formed the connections that I sought to obliterate. It was nihilistic life I thought I wanted. I believed I was the Übermensch. 

Understanding is only part of the change. I lack another key to being truly human. I’m not sure I recall love.

***

I know he didn’t come here to rescue _me_. He came to me, the person who has killed so many of his friends, his brother, and who has tried to kill him more than once as far as he knows, with a strange confidence that I will _save_ someone I don’t know, someone with a power that I’d have gladly taken for my own not very long ago.

***

Everyone ran from me. Even Claire. I used to think that was marvelous evidence of power. I don’t want that anymore. The ability of a woman who can bring people to her at will—that’s something to have, a temptation to rival all the others so far. To become a spider weaving a beautiful web of music drawing all other powers to me. When I think of it, I know that Peter would have been one of the first I’d have called to me even though his power is of no use to me. Did I want revenge on him? If so, for what? He’s been a defender, not a conqueror or competitor. I think he makes me so angry because he’s the anti-Sylar. Everyone good loves Peter. 

He’s confident that I won’t kill Emma, that I’ll help her. It makes no sense. And it’s all academic since we’ll never get out. Matt is pathetic in so many ways, but he’s powerful. I didn’t even understand what had happened until Peter explained it to me; as hard as I rejected it, I have finally come to believe him.

***

Whatever reality might be, for us, years have passed. Lately, I wake up needing to be touched. It’s been so long since any kind of touch lingered on my skin. Out among humans and specials, almost no one voluntarily touched me, but there were little things people can’t really avoid, brushes in the subway, fingers giving change. I think I’ll go mad with it—if someone like me can go more mad. Peter must be worse off than me; out there, he was affectionate with everyone and frankly, downright needy. He even forgets himself with me once in a while—a hand on my shoulder or arm, until that shadow crosses his face.

***

He goes at that wall every day. He believes with unshakeable faith that only hours are passing in the world outside my—our mind. I don’t participate. We’re never getting out. I feel badly, actually, for Peter. But I’ve made peace with the fact that I belong here. I might be soulless and yet I feel that this punishment is just. For me. He shouldn’t have come after me. His girl, Emma, will die along with the people she calls to the carnival, and Peter is trapped here with me.

***

Thanks to Nathan, I know what it’s like to hold Peter when he cries, hug him when he’s ecstatic, lie tangled up with him asleep on a couch or a rug. Brothers. It feels good, safe. The bond between them is so strong that it has survived incredible betrayals—mostly Nathan’s. 

In painful moments, I call up these memories for my own comfort. It’ll never happen with me. There’s a constantly bruised look about him, not exactly fear or hate any longer, but deep, abiding mistrust and anger. Nathan operated somewhere morally between Peter and me; I understand Nathan much better than I understand Peter. 

I’ve learned that Nathan and I have other, interesting memories, hidden deeper. Of course, we’ve seen Peter naked in all sorts of conditions. We know his strengths, his scars, and we have more than a casual or competitive interest. We don’t remember ever touching Peter like we secretly wanted to, but we _watched_. More than once, always furtively. Don’t know whether or not Peter knew. Every once in a while one of those memories surfaces. So far, when one does, I push it away; a glancing blow sends it back to oblivion. I can always take one out and examine it if I want to, I just don’t want to.

***

He knew there was a risk but he didn’t truly weigh the cost of spending the rest of his life with me in this place. If we really are just avatars of ourselves, I wonder if he’s mortal? Thanks to Claire’s power, I’ll be here forever, I think. But Peter—if his body isn’t tended, he’ll die. If Parkman puts him in a hospital, comatose, he’ll age. Someday, I’ll be completely alone.

***

Most of the sexual pleasure I’ve ever felt in my life is in the physical rush of killing and taking a new power. Or taking a power and then deciding whether or not to kill its former vessel. I guess that actually makes me a rapist. I used to just react to the impulse and then feel horror later. Then, I came to regard myself as a predator, the top of the food chain, amoral. 

But truly, I’m a rapist and a murderer. Is that redeemable?

Nathan killed people in self-defense or defense of others, as a soldier, as a protector of family. Even his collateral killings, heading the hunting and trapping of specials, were enabled by convoluted justifications centered around the safety of others. He didn’t have the taste for killing. And he felt guilty about it every minute of his life, a faint noise in the background of everything he ever felt or did. There’s never any such pretense on my part. Not since Elle stopped Gabriel from killing himself and Gabriel became me.

The mere knowledge of my existence, of a fraction of what I’ve done, is sufficient justification for anyone to exterminate me. I understand that. Anyone who approaches me has already been provoked simply by the fact that I continue to live, and that person is already in such danger that to lash out first is self-defense. 

I feel no guilt. But regret. I’m coming to remember regret. 

***

Today, I wanted to kiss him. I’m even having trouble _writing_ that. 

***

I’ve thought a lot about this since I last wrote. Peter has a way of getting into my personal space when he speaks intently. It used to piss me off. Clearly, I’m reacting to being so long alone. His approach, Nathan’s memories, the fact that I’ve let him in close so many times without killing him, fools my body into the pattern I had with the few women I’ve actually laid, triggering what I felt for them. Only natural. I’ve been celibate—not taken a power, killed, or had sex in what, four or five years? 

***

It’s been quite an education to learn about this person in ways that the memories I carry contradict. Apparently, big brothers aren’t always accurate. According to Nathan, Peter’s weak, brave but vulnerable because of his soft heart. In fact, Peter is _wily_ —it seems that every cursed member of this family is creatively devious—but he channels that with a do-good spirit that I used to find pathetic, or vaguely amusing. 

I’ve come to understand that he’s filled with love, and it doesn’t only extend to people he knows really well. He loves total strangers. He loves the world. I don’t get it. He even loves me. He doesn’t want to love me, but he does, believes that there is some kernel of my irredeemable self that’s worthy of love. Here, where neither of us could really hurt the other even if we wanted to, I’ve had time to adapt to it, to find it charming. Sometimes, when I want to goad him, I have the impulse to tell him that I know he loves me. And that it’s so sweet and naïve to believe that a rapist and serial murderer still has something in him worth saving. But I’ve become attached to the idea and I don’t want to hear him reject it out loud.

***

The mid-afternoon light is filtering through thin curtains. Peter’s door is closed, shutting out the world, but we can see just fine. Hijacking the webcam we got him as a Christmas present started as a protective act and has become a terrible temptation. Fortunately, it isn’t oriented just right very often. It is today.

Shift work has left him wrung out. It’s been a long time since Peter had a significant other, a companion animal, a close friend. He pours too much of himself into work. This is Peter only a year or so ago… in the real world. We watch him sleep for a few minutes, face down in faded scrub bottoms, the covers in disarray. We wonder when he finds time to maintain his sleekness—we never see him at the pool any more.

Nathan’s ready arousal is the price of taking out this memory and examining it. It’s one of the memories that threaten to surface at those times when I involuntarily channel a train of thought that the elder had about the younger. This doesn’t seem like something to blurt out; it would tear apart his relationship to Nathan. And I’d prefer not to say something to Peter that would do that. Interesting. A few years ago—in terms of time I’ve experienced—I’d have enjoyed the confusion and pain it caused. Now, I don’t feel the drive to hurt him.

He rolls over, flings an arm overhead, and his eyes slit open. My heart rate increases in response to Nathan’s imprint, and I have to consciously work to calm down. Peter rubs the other hand over his faint stubble and then stretches. Am I objectively thinking that the flow of his muscles is attractive, or is it Nathan? It’s definitely Nathan’s interest that registers the ridge in Peter’s scrubs. Along with more attentiveness, shame flares—definitely not an emotion originating with me… or is it? There was a time as a child when I felt mostly ashamed, unworthy of anyone and anything. 

I’m intellectualizing. Nathan isn’t. Peter’s overhead arm descends and rubs absently at the current center of attention, and his sigh is annoyed, like when he says, “I haven’t got time for this,” despite the fact that we seem to have eternity before us. But he gives in. A quick scramble at the ties, the scrubs pushed down just enough, and his cock is out. Of course, Angela would insist upon circumcision (that’s my thought intruding). Nathan’s memory is thickly layered; the first time he saw this and refused to touch himself, with the times he replayed the video file, and with the times he simply recalled his own version of it. Except for the live viewing, he mostly didn’t resist. The desire to join in is almost too much, but I can separate from him just enough to keep both hands on the kitchen table. 

Despite his annoyance at being interrupted by bodily functions, Peter is slow, gentle. At first, his eyes are fixed on the ceiling. Nathan doesn’t wonder what he thinks about, big brother is focused on the actions. I do wonder. He’s quiet except when a harsh breath or a small, almost hurt sound escapes. There isn’t anyone to hear him (so he believes) and yet he’s quiet. 

Toward the end as we anticipate it, his eyes shift to watch himself. That _gets_ me. Nathan doesn’t take notice even though his mind must have registered it for me to be seeing it. He’s focused on watching Peter’s hand and dick (Nathan’s word). I have to pull back a little because Nathan comes in a whole series of memory overlaps and I certainly don’t want to. As _that_ passes, I move my attention back in. Peter gasps hard and splashes his belly, straining up and then falling back, chest heaving. 

The thing that most surprises me is the tears silently running back into his hair, they must tickle his ears…

“Hey, can you—” 

My focus snaps to the present and I’m looking right in his eyes. From the kitchen doorway, he visibly flinches back, eyes widening. Ah, I’d say he recognizes my arousal for what it is. I’m deeply relieved that my hands haven’t left the table where they still rest on either side of my book. “Yes?” I try to say gently, despite the power of the rush held tenuously at bay.

“I… I didn’t mean to just come in here like that. Sorry.” 

Apparently, he can’t just pretend he didn’t notice even though I clearly wasn’t doing anything… visible. “It’s the kitchen,” I say with amusement. “I was lost in thought. The book, it made me remember something. Sit down, I could use the company.” I gesture at the teapot (I’m certainly not getting up).

Peter takes down a cup and joins me at the table. He struggles for a few moments. I wait. “It’s difficult, I know. Being here without…” His crooked mouth quirks even harder.

“Sex.” I guess I’ll say it if he can’t. 

“Right.”

“It isn’t as though I had a healthy sex life before. Other than the pleasure of killing—no point in mincing words about that—Elle and Lydia were my only lovers in a long time, two brief flings in what, five or six years. Wait… three. Janice, well, she wasn’t my fling _exactly_ , but it sure felt like it. She’s probably still trying to get Parkman to…,” I can’t help but grin that Peter looks so shocked. “Never mind. But the absence of any possibility is certainly stressful.” I sip my tea. “And you not being a villain and all, your life wasn’t as solitary as mine.”

“But it has been.” Peter frowns. “Even lately, I mean, before here, I’ve felt connected with Emma but I don’t feel a strong urge to sleep with her. Last I can remember, I was really attracted to Claire….” Peter shudders, “I’m certainly not a high-school-girl guy, she’s just way older than that, you know? But then to find out she’s Nathan’s daughter, well, I think that screwed up my radar for a good long while.”

I can’t help grinning. “Yeah, Claire has a way of doing that. Maybe you love Emma, just not as a lover. That’s possible, right?” The painful pulse-beat in my cock has subsided to semi-hardness. But it’s still there.

“I haven’t even had a friendly-fuck with anyone in ages,” he jokes. But he isn’t joking.

It’s definitely difficult to look at Peter in the face of that comment without flashing to how he looked in that joyful-sad moment of intense pleasure I just re-lived. It’s keeping me on edge. I’ve pushed Nathan’s memories as far back as possible so that my responses can be wholly my own. I can’t envision actually touching Peter, but I feel a hunger for him, a nonspecific desire to feel his naked skin on mine for the pleasure of it. I watch him sip his tea and like a punch to my gut, I feel a question rise up that I have to choke on to stop, _Has a guy ever sucked you off?_

Peter reaches over and pounds me on the back. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I manage to croak. Not really okay at all. I’m dominant in every aspect of life. It would be one thing to have a fleeting thought of Peter giving me what I need. Quite another to imagine getting on my knees for him. I think I’d best leave Nathan’s memories alone.

***

It’s been three months since I let _that_ particular memory out to play. Others try to surface; Peter glimpsed touching himself in the shower, or stroking off on a blanket in the woods when he thinks Nathan is fishing, or losing his virginity in the back seat of the family limo with Nathan playing chauffer and leaving the panel cracked just enough to hear everything. I manage to brush them off. There are other things to remember when I need release. Unfortunately, Elle is associated with regret. Lydia—I restrained my powers with her and she was very talented. That works.

Unlike Peter, I’m not gentle and slow. I like thick lotion and a hard grip. Urgency. Shit. I need to stop making comparisons.

***

We’ve discussed concepts of redemption, both religious and ethical. The Petrellis are steeped in religion and yet conveniently mold it to their ambitions. Except for Peter. He ministers to the suffering, a Jesuit in the Papal fold. The Church left Peter confused. But while I’ve gone through life with no moral compass, he embodies morality separate from the edicts of any higher authority. Perhaps that’s what makes his belief that I can change so compelling.

***

Another few months of abstaining from the webcam memory and I finally break down. 

I must have been dreaming, although the very concept of dreaming inside a forced-hallucination is boggling. Anyway, I must have been dreaming those memories because I wake up hard, which isn’t really my M.O., and my first thought is of Peter. I try to shake it off, to divert myself back to Lydia’s touch. Even to the stolen kiss from Claire and that body-rush of sharing her heart’s desire… no, that was just another variety of rape. She very much didn’t want my mouth on hers or to share anything with me. Dammit. 

Feeling desperate, I give in and let myself into that room. Peter’s tousled hair and relaxed body seem familiar, comforting. The bed has space for another, for me. But someone else is here too. This is no good; Nathan’s responses are layering in again. 

What about something new… something Nathan wouldn’t know? The thought excites me more. I take a deep breath and _imagine_. Peter is hammering away at the wall again. He’s pulled his shirt off which indicates how far into the task he’s gone, since sweating here, or not, is really a trick of the mind. I could always admire a man’s looks or physique without sexual response. Watching _him_ is different now. He pauses, breathing hard, and drops the sledgehammer. I come up behind him and run my fingers down the muscled groove of his spine. He whirls around, bringing his face so close our noses almost brush. He’s startled but not surprised yet. What I did was open to interpretation. He starts to step back, and I catch a belt loop in his jeans to keep him close. My cock is pounding now and outside this fantasy, I have to tend to it. 

“Gabriel,” he says, and it trembles between a question and a statement. I don’t kiss him on the mouth, I bend to the curve of his neck instead. He smells warm and animal and worked up and _Peter_. With no one else around for years, I know his scent. And then I lose my patience and it’s only a minute or two of preliminaries before I back him into the wall, tear open his jeans, and get my mouth around his cock. I don’t really know how it feels to do this, but the data, the facts that I do know, fit nicely into my fantasy (unlike Peter’s cock which isn’t so easy to handle). He tries to be quiet, of course, but a groan slips out as I try this thing someone once did to me. I get my own clothing open and stroke myself hard as I work him with my mouth. When he goes rigid against the wall, he tastes like me because I don’t know how he tastes. I’m not quiet when I come and it feels like the world’s been obliterated around me. 

On my way to the wall with two cups of coffee, I’m still feeling aftershocks. I strive for my “just another day of fruitless effort” face, but I think I must look different. Sure enough, Peter’s already hard at work. I don’t sneak up on him from behind, I call out to him, “Hey, I brought coffee.”

He turns with his crooked smile and sets aside the hammer, rubs gritty hands on his jeans. “Thanks. I know that having coffee shouldn’t matter at all, but somehow it helps.”

“Ritual,” I reply. 

“What were you doing precisely seventeen minutes ago?” he asks abruptly.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s important.”

I take a swallow of coffee to buy a moment. “It’s private.”

“Sorry, but I gotta know exactly what. The wall changed, shimmering so I could almost see through it. I thought for a few seconds I’d break through, but then it solidified again. Really, this could be the key. No room for embarrassment, man.”

I think he thinks I was using the john or maybe having a tearful moment of remorse about the evils of my life. This is going to blow him away. I take a half-step back so that my words don’t seem like aggression. And then I tell the truth, as afraid as I am that I’ll lose the one precious, mutual connection I have with another person. 

“I was having a shattering orgasm.” Pause. His expression is duly stunned. “While fantasizing about you.” I’m not a look-away kind of person, so I don’t. Neither does he. I don’t think he’s capable at the moment.

I lose my balance for a second in the shock of Peter’s weight shifting into me. He isn’t pushing or hitting, he’s grabbing, pulling my mouth down to his. The most amazing part is that even though I have no power here, I suddenly know his deepest, most private desire, and it really is to save the world, one person at a time, including me at the very top of his list.  
*******

**Outside**

I’ve tried to recall what I’d journaled inside to copy it down out here, but I only remember those few bits. Most of them are about Peter even though the greater part of what I wrote was finished before he ever arrived. I spent less time writing when he was around. And now, I want to spend more time living than journaling. 

That kiss. It began so stunningly and ended so fearfully. Peter’s _want_ , his aggression, took me back to full fuck-readiness, and he hung there with me for one agonizing minute of ecstatic connection. But his busy mind must have intervened, _reminded_ him who he was kissing. He pulled away, shaking his head, looking at the ground, and went back to the wall. At least he didn’t lash out at me. I let him be. 

But it was a key. Peter’s faith in me and my trust in him, is what I needed to understand being human at its best. Nathan’s memories, and being the only two people in our world, might have facilitated the attraction, but what brought Peter across that gulf to me wasn’t mere animal need. And it confirmed for me that anything is possible with the soul. 

The rejection hurt, no way around it. But I couldn’t blame him. I accepted that his loyalty to Nathan is more important. 

The next day, I picked up the hammer for the first time. And then, he surprised me again. His desire to forgive me, to accept his love for me, I didn’t expect it. Watching him struggle broke my heart, and in the breaking, I _felt_ it, not merely beating but caring. And the wall gave. 

So now, I have to be brave. Peter hasn’t said a word about the kiss. He treats me gently, protectively, and I know that the desire to forgive has won. He’s my role model, and I’m no longer embarrassed to think it. But he’s also the source of a tremendous, growing hunger. It’s painful to watch him want to woo Emma. My spark of hope is that he seems paralyzed with her, like the _idea_ of her motivates him but not the reality. I’m not a thief anymore; it isn’t the thrill of winning, of taking, that I want. I want him like he was at the wall. I want him to come to me. If not, then I’ll wait. I’ve learned to be patient. 


	2. The Best and the Worst

I’m in the garden trying to figure out what keeps going wrong with the tomato plants. I heal them, water them, weed them but they just turn yellow again, time after time. This experiment, in which I live in a house of my own, _plant_ things, and try not to squash bugs out of frustration or curiosity, is a strange existence. 

I love what varies day after day, unlike the part of my mind where I was trapped. How could I have been so lacking in imagination?

So I’m here, focused, when I hear a dry leaf crush and I spin to meet a threat. I still don’t feel safe most places. It’s Peter, smiling, and I instantly let my guard down. “Hey.” I think I must be grinning like the proverbial village idiot of yore. 

“Gabriel.” He no longer almost says _Sylar_ first. I’m sure that he no longer even thinks it. Funny, I wonder when I’ll stop _noticing_. I stand up and brush dirt from my knees to give myself something to do besides stare at his crooked mouth that says my name like I wish I could have heard it said my whole life. 

“What brings you here?” I haven’t seen him in weeks. I try not to sound hurt. We both have our hands full with… work. And me with trying to just live like a human.

“Considering we spent practically every waking moment together for years, I’m surprised I need a reason,” he teases.

“You don’t,” I reply, absolutely not teasing. I hold his eyes for just that cursed millisecond too long. “Tea?”

“Perfect.”

I think we both don’t very much like tea, but for some reason, it was there in my/our head in the afternoons. Coffee was for mornings. So I fix tea.

I’ve been one of them for five months. Noah, of all people, found me this house. 

Claire bought me my first cookbook. She didn’t hug me or anything. Just slapped the book in my hand like she was daring me to fuck up again real soon. Through clenched teeth, she growled, “If you hurt him, I’ll kill you. Repeatedly and creatively.” Claire can see right through me now. _How’s your girlfriend?_ I was tempted to reply to her, but that’s just me being jealous. She’s brave enough. Me, turns out, not so much.

I’ve just emptied the kettle into the teapot when arms settle around my waist and I almost drop the hot metal—Peter catches it by the handle, and I watch in half-time as he sets it aside on the burner. I have long, long moments to feel him close in, his hands sliding up my belly, his face settling against my neck, and oh, God. I don’t breathe. _Mustn’t spook him,_ every muscle thinks at once. I close my eyes, trying to memorize every detail of it. Peter, touching me, with his whole body. So sweet. It’s achingly sweet. 

“Don’t forget to breathe,” he says, drolly. 

Sucking in air, I’m still frozen for fear of the alternative to being still which seems to involve shredding his clothing with telekinesis and taking liberties I’m fairly sure aren’t on his menu of preferred activities. I think he misreads me in that moment—the hands start to slide away.

“Sorry… I thought… no, I didn’t think. Damn,” he says. That busy mind is always so ready to accept responsibility, the mistakes, the blame.

Without thinking, I grab his hands to stop him, pressing them against my chest. “Please don’t.” I have a flash of my shadow-Sylar scoffing at that, a glimpse of Nathan trying to intrude. I push them both away. This is _mine_. I draw up one of those hands, cupped in both of my own, press my mouth into it, and keep it there. 

It’s a comfort, feeling him accept my silence. I can’t say, _I’m scared._ I haven’t come that far yet. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” he says, and it makes me hard, the way he says it. It’s Peter-mischief, a play-wicked voice—I’ve heard it before but not in this context, not with his free hand punctuating, sliding over my jeans to squeeze me, verifying and reinforcing his effect. 

My hand-muffled groan vibrates between us. “Yeah,” he says close to my ear. “I know what you mean. What the fuck took me so long?”

I let go of his hand now because I have to turn around. I must get closer. Peter takes care of that for me. His mouth is gloriously eager. I know he feels the sensation too—so primitive that all it translates to in the mind is _eat_. One hand is full of his hair and the other’s got his ass, both hauling him tight to me, and he’s ready, miracle of miracles, forcing me back against the counter, ripping my shirt, fucking against me with tongue and cock until we’re both coming strangled and hurting and mercifully released.

My back is suddenly cramped against the hard counter but I refuse to push him off me. He’s hot and damp and heaving for breath. He smells delicious, like honey and sex and something else too heady to name. My heart is racing from the zero-to-a-hundred pace, and from the shock of holding Peter against me in the real world. Finally, he pulls back, but not like he did at the wall. He catches my gaze and holds it as he draws away, pulls me with him into the living room, pushes me onto the couch. 

He’s stripping away my shirt and I’m feeling terribly self-conscious about the chest hair. I’m not the kind of guy I’d go for, let alone Peter’s type. Not me, all stubble and chest and arm and finger hair, nothing to make this easier for a guy who once found ultra-groomed Claire hot. Conversely, I feel like Peter being Peter makes crossing this line easier for me. Besides being him on the inside, he’s smooth and sleek on the outside, a woman’s textures over a man’s muscles and bones. But then again, there’s a dark stain over Peter’s crotch, big sweat marks on his grey t-shirt, and a stubborn jaw jutting out as he wrestles my shirt away and flicks its remnants across the room. He isn’t at all womanish. I don’t want him to be like a girl, I want his strength pushing back. I want his cock in my hand and my mouth. I can at least admit it in the privacy of my skull. 

I hook fingers in his t-shirt and pull it off. He obliges me by slipping one arm out at a time while going to work on my belt. I don’t know what on God’s green earth he thinks I’m capable of doing naked right now. I’m utterly spent. But he doggedly yanks off jeans and sticky briefs until I’m buck-naked on the brown leather underneath him, thinking suddenly about my hairy legs. And then, he sits back and looks me over. I have to put my arm over my eyes, I just can’t look at him looking at me. “What are you doing,” I finally say, stupidly.

A hand slides over my upper chest, testing how that feels, then down, down. “The fantasies were wrong,” he says in a sultry voice I’ve never heard. “I didn’t know. Now, they’ll be better.”

I uncover my eyes. He’s looking at my face, with that sad, kind, knowing expression with which I’m all too familiar, except that there’s a hot spark behind it. That spark is for me.

“Yes. I’m admitting it out loud,” he says. He’s stroking me softly, understanding that it’s too soon for anything else.

Empathy is turning out to be a bitch goddess—I’d rather not see myself through others’ eyes most days, and I’d especially not like to imagine how Peter has seen me in the past. Usually, what I repair stays fixed, but… how can anyone trust that? So I say, “You know, the worst part about this _isn’t_ that I’m a guy.” 

Peter smiles and shrugs. “You’re right.” He gets rid of the rest of his clothes and lies down along me, head on my shoulder, covering me with a blanket of warm comfort. He rubs his thumb back and forth on my other shoulder absentmindedly. “You know, you being a guy isn’t the best part about this either.” There’s an extended pause. “Um, what I mean by that is that the worst and the best of _this_ are exactly the same.” He plants a kiss right in the middle of my chest.

I feel, of all damn things, _tears_ silently running back into my hair, and they tickle my ears…


End file.
